LONDON, Feb 18, (KUNA): Fizzy drinks should be taxed, fast food outlets near schools limited and new parents given specific advice on how to feed their children properly to help tackle spiralling levels of obesity, an influential medical group has demanded.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC), which represents nearly every one of Britain’s 220,000 doctors, is pressing ministers, councils, the state-run National Health Service (NHS) and food organisations for action on what it calls “the greatest public health crisis affecting the UK”, the Guardian newspaper said Monday.

In a report the AMRC said doctors from across the medical profession are united in their concerns, and criticised the present and previous governments for insufficient and ineffective attempts to tackle the problem.

One in four adults in the UK is obese, figures say, a number expected to double by 2050. Doctors fear the obesity crisis is becoming “unresolvable”, and are calling for society “as a whole” to act before it becomes irreversible.

The report also drew parallels with the campaign against smoking, saying: “Just as the challenges of persuading society that the deeply embedded habit of smoking was against its better interests, changing how we eat is now a matter of necessity.” The need for action is urgent to break the cycle of “generation after generation falling victim to obesity-related illnesses and death,” it added.

Professor Terence Stephenson, the chairman of the AMRC, told the Guardian the report was not a full solution to obesity, but outlines what needs to be done now before the NHS can no longer cope.

For its part, The Department of Health (DoH) acknowledged that the threat posed by obesity in both adults and children was one of today’s most important public health challenges.